Maggie Teyte, British Singer extraordinaire, and recording stalwart since 1907 here in her most famous recording: A set of Songs by Debussy, with incredible playing by Alfred Cortot. Recorded in 1936

Teytes singing, and the incredible piano artistry of Cortot makes this on of the truely great sets.

This set was a comeback Album for Maggie Teyte. Even though she had recorded for all major record labels since the mid oughts, by the 1930s her carreer was basically at a standstill. This album propelled her to prominence as the finest interpreter of Debussy and all French songs.

  Z TYPE SHELLAC late scroll pressing (no z mark) 6x 10" 78 rpm recods in Orig Album M 322 and booklet

Claude Debussy

   Fetes galantes I
 
Teyte, Maggie, soprano
Cortot, Alfred, piano
 

Clair de lune  02:44
En sourdine  01:19
Fantouches  02:52
   Fetes galantes II
 
Teyte, Maggie, soprano
Cortot, Alfred, piano
 

Les ingenus  02:01
Le faune  01:40
Colloque sentimental  03:22
   Trois Chansons de Bilitis
 
Teyte, Maggie, soprano
 

La flute de Pan  2:32
La chevelure  3:06
Le tombeau des Naiades  2:42
  

Le Promenoir des deux amants
 
Teyte, Maggie, soprano
Cortot, Alfred, piano
 

Aupres de cette grotte sombre  02:22
Crois mon conseil, chere Climene  02:01
Je tremble en voyant ton visage  02:02
Ballades des femmes de Paris  02:06
   Proses lyriques
 
Teyte, Maggie, soprano
Cortot, Alfred, piano 

Condition: ECXELLENT light scuffs plays very quiet, Album is good, spine is split with top 2 cm missing,.

The significance of recording played a considerable part in reviving the career of Maggie Teyte in the mid-1930s. Following her divorce from her second husband, the American Sherwin Cottingham, in 1931, she attempted to revive her career that had been largely dormant during the previous decade. Unfortunately she seemed unable to find her proper course, landing up in music hall and variety which involved 24 performances a week at the Victoria Palace in London. She also appeared as Mrs Fitzherbert in an operetta By Appointment by Kennedy Russell that opened in the New Theatre in London on 11th October 1934. Two of the songs from the score appear in the present release. The success was short-lived and the production closed after a short run. Her future seemed uncertain.

Then in 1935, Joe Brogan, an Irish-American record collector and dealer in New York City, wrote to EMI suggesting an album of French songs by Maggie Teyte for inclusion in their newly-formed series of Society Editions. The producer Walter Legge was not convinced but his superior Fred Gaisberg was much taken with the project and even suggested the distinguished French pianist Alfred Cortot as her accompanist. Their historic collaboration was cemented in March 1936 with the recording of Debussy to be found in this set. Such was the artistic and commercial success of these recordings, with Brogan alone selling over a thousand sets, that TeyteÆs career was reborn. The artist, however, always claimed never to have had a gramophone.

Born Margaret Tate on 17th April 1888 in Wolverhampton, Maggie Teyte was one of ten children from two marriages. Her half-brother, James William Tate, would become a composer who is now best remembered for his songs A Paradise for Two and A Bachelor Gay, which were included in Harold Fraser-SimsonÆs musical play The Maid of the Mountains in 1917. Tate died five years later, at the age of 46. His half-sister Margaret possessed an excellent memory and applied herself to music from an early age. After a short period of study at the Royal College of Music in London, she went to Paris in 1904 to work with the Polish tenor Jean de Reszke for two years, in time becoming his most successful pupil. She was a natural learner and quickly absorbed his teaching methods. It was also a particularly fortunate circumstance that she was able to work with Debussy, who was considered a most exacting taskmaster. Many years later Teyte would recall: "I studied the part of MΘlisande with him every day over a period of five to six months. Whether my temperament or the colour of my voice had anything to do with it I do not know, but he never got angry with or corrected me, through all the lessons of PellΘas or his repertoire of songs".

Her concert dΘbut as Margaret Tate was in Monte Carlo, while she was still studying, in 1907, the year which also saw her first appearance on the stage as Tyreis in OffenbachÆs Myriame et Daphne. Her Paris dΘbut was at the ThΘΓtre National de lÆOpΘra-Comique on her nineteenth birthday in HillmacherÆs Circe. Three years later she came to London to sing with the Beecham Opera Company at His MajestyÆs Theatre, appearing as Cherubino in MozartÆs Le nozze di Figaro followed by Blonde in the same composerÆs Die Entfⁿhrung aus dem Serail. Cherubino was also her dΘbut r⌠le at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in the autumn of the same year.

Maggie Teyte made her first appearance in America in Chicago, again as Cherubino, in 1911. With the outbreak of the Great War she remained in the United States, and returning to Britain in 1919 she created the r⌠le of Lady Mary Carlisle in MessagerÆs operetta Monsieur Beaucaire at the PrinceÆs Theatre on 19th April. Following her second marriage in March 1921, she all but retired from the singing profession until 1930 when she gave a solitary performance as MΘlisande in DebussyÆs opera in addition to taking the title-r⌠le in PucciniÆs Madama Butterfly. She would return to the Royal Opera House in 1936-37 both as Hansel and Gretel in HumperdinckÆs opera, Euridice in GluckÆs OrphΘe and Butterfly. The years 1938-39 saw famous broadcast performances of MassenetÆs Manon in English in addition to an ill-advised attempt as Eva in WagnerÆs Die Meistersinger.